The two governments have expanded their co-operation in establishing a nuclear umbrella that would give Washington and Tokyo nuclear first-strike capability against their adversaries in the region. Washington has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world and, according to a Japanese defense official quoted in Forbes magazine, Japan has the technology in place to have its own nuclear arsenal within about six months.

“Japan is a heavy user of nuclear power and has reprocessing plans for mixed uranium-plutonium oxide that can produce weapons grade plutonium,” Investor’s Business Daily reported July 12, and “is believed to have a stockpile of separated plutonium of 45 tons—enough for 9,000 nuclear weapons.”

Despite constitutional restrictions imposed on a defeated Japan after World War II that restricted the use of Japanese military force abroad, Tokyo maintains an army with 240,000 troops. The Japanese government has steadily increased the offensive capabilities of its military, deploying 1,000 troops to Iraq in 2004 in the Japanese army’s first overseas combat mission since World War II.

The Japanese government seeks to include “pre-emptive strikes” as part of the constitutional definition of “self-defense.” Referring to north Korea, the Japanese government’s chief cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, said, “There is the view that attacking the launch base of the guided missiles is within the constitutional right of self-defense.” This view was echoed by top military officials.

Worldwide, Washington—the only government ever to use nuclear weapons in warfare—maintains “thousands of nuclear-missile warheads mounted atop 500 silo-based Minuteman III ICBM’s and aboard 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines,” reported the Defense News.

While maintaining this arsenal, the Pentagon spends nearly $10 billion a year developing a missile shield that would allow it to use these weapons without facing a nuclear reprisal.

The ground-based Midcourse Missile Defense System was begun in 1998 under the Clinton administration. It is based on nine interceptor missiles in Fort Greely, Alaska, and two in Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The sea-based missile shield includes “at least one ship-based Aegis missile-defense system deployed off the Korean coast,” noted the Wall Street Journal, “with a potential” to shoot down a missile launched by north Korea.

According to a July 10 Defense News article, that system “has successfully hit its target seven times in a row,” including in June.

On June 23, Tokyo and Washington signed an agreement to jointly produce anti-missile missiles. That same month, the two imperialist powers agreed for the first time to deploy Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles on U.S. bases in Japan. In addition, Tokyo “signed an agreement to produce its own PAC-3 missiles for deployment at Japanese bases by the end of the year,” reported Investor’s Business Daily.

In response, China is making improvements to its missile technology. By the year’s end Beijing plans to deploy “the first of 60 Dong Feng 31-series intercontinental ballistic missiles, which will be the first Chinese nuclear-tipped weapons that can target all of Europe or the entire continental United States,” Defense News reported.

These missiles, which are scheduled to be put into operation in 2007, will have a range of 7,000 miles. In addition, a submarine-launched version of these missiles are projected to be deployed, the article states.

U.S. “experts” have expressed concern, Defense News reported, that the advances in Beijing’s missile technology may prompt the Chinese government to relax its “no first use” policy, which states that its weapons will only be used in response to a nuclear strike. Washington has no such policy for its nuclear arsenal, which is far larger than China’s.  
 
 
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